The low budget look and feel of this movie topped off by being shot in
black and white gives a stark portrayal of the complete lack of
opportunities for the young unemployed in the north of England in the
early 1980s. This can be compared in some ways to "Love on the Dole",
but it is even less romanticised in the way it deals with the curse of
mass unemployment and the corrosive effects it has on a society that
doesn't deserve it.

Two lads drift along in between signing on trying their best to retain
their self respect and stay within the law. One of the lads decides his
only way out is to join the army whereupon he is sent over to Northern
Ireland. On returning home on leave, he exhibits the signs of having
been brutalised by the experience as he talks with apparent relish
about the savage treatment meted out by British soldiers during raids
in Roman Catholic areas.

The other lad, Mick meanwhile has met a girl who despite having a job
(in a shop), is troubled due to her parents having split up and her
having arguments with her stressed out mother. When the girl decides to
run away to see her father who now lives in Bristol, Mick decides to go
with her. However, her father is now living with another woman and
simply tells his daughter that she cannot stay with him.

On returning north, there is nothing new or different for Mick. The
atmosphere of hopelessness is excellently captured along with the
efforts the young characters make to rise above it. The result is what
it sets out to be, namely a bleak allegory on the effects of economic
recession and harsh government policies on people with no control over
such things and little hope of escape other than being starved in to
the armed forces in the same way that occurred before both of the world
wars.

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